Cross-country skiing: Legkov banned for life demands “fair trial”.

The Russian cross-country skiing star Alexander Legkov has accused the IOC of arbitrariness after his lifelong ban on the Olympics and has rejected all accusations of doping:”The only thing I want is to be treated fairly in order to have independent arbitrators in a fair, legally regulated trial,” the 34-year-old wrote in a long personal statement on Monday:”Either at the CAS or at the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, or at the Federal Court of Justice.

Five days earlier, the IOC had suspended the 50km Olympic champion and his team mate Yevgeny Belov from the Olympic Games in Sochi for life because of doping at the Winter Games in Sochi. His gold medal was “clean,”Legkov emphasized:”I stand up straight and fight.”

I would like to ask myself, my team mates, my opponents and all the other athletes:”If this proves nothing and does not protect us from a vague suspicion, why are we doing this?” he asked and added:”We are all forced to subject ourselves to a sanction procedure,” he said.

Legkov’s lawyer Cristof Wieschemann had already announced the day after the judgement that he would go to the International Sports Court and sharply criticized the IOC. Investigator Richard McLaren “stated in his report that he has no evidence of doping by individual athletes. The IOC makes decisions that go far beyond McLaren’s report. It’s too easy to make it that way.”